Facing the Media

Media-awareness.ca is an informative website which targets teachers, parents, and a young audience in being aware of the media. The website attempts to teach young people to use the tools and resources. The website offers lessons, a membership, a blog, educational games, and news in order to become an interactive way of learning the information the website offers. A section of this website focuses on the representation of women in the media. The articles dealing with women in the media show the reality and the effects the media imposes on young girls and women who are the audience. Media-awareness uncovers the truth behind the representations and the motives of women.

An article in this website titled “Media Coverage of Women and Women’s Issue” discusses the underrepresentation of women in the media and how women are portrayed in stereotypical roles. Some of these stereotypical roles include women being only housewife’s, only sexual items, and submissive towards society especially men. The article suggests that women in news usually cover stories that need compassion and sympathy such as accidents, natural disasters, and domestic violence. Women also tend to receive less air time or input less quotes compared to men in the news and other media coverage. Women in sports are also misrepresented in the media. Their last names are usually used to identify them and their beauty at some points becomes more important than their actual skills. For example Anna Kournikova received more attention for being beautiful than for her games and contributions to tennis. Another important point the article the makes is that women need to be beautiful in order to be better accepted by the audience. The article uses Greta Van Susteren as an example. In order to appear in FOX she had to do a surgical procedure in her face, cut her hair and use make up. This implies that beauty comes before brains.

The website includes other articles such as “Beauty and Body Image in the Media”, “Media and Girls”, “Sex and Relationships in the Media”, and other articles that are relevant and informative. They induce the readers to question the media and what they are exposed to. After reading the articles the audience becomes more critical about themselves, especially women, and what they let themselves believe or judge. This and many other websites are attempting to question the dominant and powerful media that has many hypnotized.